Day and Night

Every nighttime takes its breath
As days go down to deal with death.
But every day, the sun will rise
In this eternal compromise.

Quiet Night

Wind chimes across the street.
My feet are grinding concrete
crumbles as my sandals find their footing.

My hand slides across the page,
My pen scrapes, its tip
rolls off each lip
whispering syllables to myself.

That dog from nowhere stopped barking
as a car that was un-parking
growled away from the wind chimes across the street.

I don’t wear dirty clothes in the evening.  But when I change into my pajamas, let those clothes sit in a pile overnight, and find them in the morning.  They’ve become dirty clothes.  This is a poem about that oddness.

Dirty Clothes

I reach down and bring up my clothes
So that they almost touch my nose,
Take a sniff to get a whiff of yesterday
When these clothes were okay.

But disease and infestation must have swarmed
Around my clothes last night and transformed
Them as they lay on the floor
Not to be worn anymore.

Before I went to bed, they were clean
But some mystically unseen
Power has taken a hold
Of those clothes and made them old.

I need new clothes this morning
Because without warning
The clothes that were perfectly fine
Are now those dirty clothes of mine.

Collecting Images

I’m collecting images inside my head
So I can recall those instead
Of making up memories when you’re gone
And I’m left to live on
Without you.

They say everything causes cancer
But there’s nothing with an answer
As to why or when you’ll have to go.
Just some time, ‘till I won’t know
What to do with myself.